Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Bill Clegg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 7, 2010

Bill Clegg had a thriving business as a literary agent, a supportive partner, trusting colleagues, and loving friends when he walked away from his world and embarked on a two-month crack binge. He had been released from rehab nine months earlier, and his relapse would cost him his home, his money, his career, and very nearly his life.

What is it that leads an exceptional young mind want to disappear? Clegg makes stunningly clear the attraction of the drug that had him in its thrall, capturing in scene after scene the drama, tension, and paranoiac nightmare of a secret life--and the exhilarating bliss that came again and again until it was eclipsed almost entirely by doom. He also explores the shape of addiction, how its pattern--not its cause--can be traced to the past.

Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man is an utterly compelling narrative--lyrical, irresistible, harsh, honest, and beautifully written--from which you simply cannot look away.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A rising publishing industry star trashes his life during a bender in this intense but callow confessional. Clegg, a literary agent with William Morris Endeavor, tells the story of a two-month crack binge in which he smoked away his literary agency partnership, his $70,000 bank account, 40 pounds (he's forever cutting new holes in his belt to cinch it to his wasting frame), and his relationship with his devoted long-suffering boyfriend. There's crazed excess and tawdry sex, but also a sharply etched portrait of the addict's mindset: the veering between paranoia and a compulsive sociability with the random crackheads he picks up to party with; the shrinkage of the planning horizon to the search for the next hit; the bliss of the high (the warmest, most tender caress... then, as it recedes, the coldest hand); the bender's unstoppable acceleration until, like a cartoon character running off a cliff, it has nothing left to sustain it. The author's efforts to impart psychological depth to his addiction—he writes of wan collegiate debauches and a childhood complex about urinating—are less convincing; it's clear that the binge will end when his money runs out. Though richly rendered, Clegg's crack odyssey feels like an epic bout of self-indulgence. (June 14)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

In this chilling debut, Clegg has written a serious and compelling, if somewhat detached, addition to the subgenre of "addiction memoirs." Clegg's tight, elegant prose, earnest tone, and meticulous attention to detail call up a fairy tale world brutally transformed into a monstrous hell. While the New York Times Book Review and the Times considered the book tedious and clichéd, their comments appeared to be directed more toward the genre as a whole, whose repetitive descriptions of substance abuse are "amply familiar to anyone who has ever watched a single episode of Behind the Music on VH-1" (Times). Of course, reviewer David Carr has written his own tale of addiction, The Night of the Gun (***1/2 Nov/Dec 2008). Most critics, however, agreed with the Globe and Mail, which called Clegg's unflinching, intelligent, and grim account "a skillfully conjured, slow-motion train wreck from which it's impossible to look away."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (June 7, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316054674
• ISBN-13: 978-0316054676
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #386,140 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

106 of 124 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Yawn - another addiction memoir..., May 2, 2010

By 

Goldengate "Goldengate" (San Francisco, where else?) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man: A Memoir (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Check my other reviews... I don't make a habit of writing negative reviews. But I found this book tedious and incomplete, and the story not very compelling. You've read this book before. Or seen the story on TV. Addict traumatized by broken relationships with his parents in childhood spirals further and further down into the hole of addiction, enabled (beyond belief) by his saintly partner, Noah, who in one scene goes so far as to hold his hand and cry as he has sex with a male hustler. Really? OK....

The majority of the book chronicles the addiction itself, with flashbacks to childhood and some sort of trauma involving an inability to urinate. Really.

We don't ever care that much about the protagonist because there's just not much to like. On 9/11... as the towers are burning... he goes and gets a haircut. OK....

He spirals downward, farther and farther, goes to rehab, spirals back down... Noah's there enabling him...

The end of the book is completely unsatisfying - but I won't spoil it just in case you do decide to read the book. Let's just say the protagonist has some unresolved childhood issues. Looking for redemption? An understanding that the world is larger than the protagonist? You're not going to find it in this book. What you will find is the narcissistic self-absorption that characterizes all addicts. Poor character development abounds - why does Noah put up with all this? Just because he loves him? And why should the reader care about any of this?

95% of the book is detailed descriptions of the protagonist doing drugs. I'd hoped to see a little more self-discovery in this book - perhaps not redemption but at least some self-reflection. But that's clearly way too much to ask.

Suggest you skip the book and check out the TV series "Intervention"....

Perhaps I'm way off base on this review, as others seemed to have liked it, but this book to me was wildly unsatisfying.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Quick read - but a bit too thin -, June 9, 2010

By 

Peter Elliott (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man: A Memoir (Hardcover)

After reading about Bill Clegg in the NY Times Style section and then reading the book excerpt in NY Magazine, I bought the Kindle version (high price at $14.99) and devoured this thin volume in a day. The truth is if you read both pieces mentioned, you've pretty much read the book (except for the back-story of his life, which focuses on the author's inability to pee and high school and college days that show an addictive personality at an early age).

The book reads well and moves along quickly(you keep on waiting for a pay-off that doesn't ever seem to come). There doesn't seem to be a lot of depth though. In a way, it's like a celebrity biography ...'and then I did this...' but replaced with ...'and then I took another hit...'

I was hoping for more.

Oddly enough, this book is not a harrowing read like the (fictional) James Frey's book. For an excellent read on addiction and recovery, check out "Liquid Lover" by John Moriarty.

I wish Bill Clegg the best with book and his career and his recovery!

42 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Oh really? Please!, June 18, 2010

By 

Mistress (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man: A Memoir (Hardcover)

A major drawback of 'Portrait' is that the book relies heavily upon events. This is a common weakness in many memoirs; the author believes you'll find the events interesting in and of themselves. But they aren't. What's missing is the interpretation. Good memoirs include reflection about why these things happened and how they shaped the writer's life. It adds the necessary meaning to the story.
In one chapter Mr Clegg does a ton of crack and then writes "I find three bottles of wine in the kitchen and drink them." And we, as the reader, are to believe he remembers all of this? Tell ya what, why don't you (and by "you", I mean anyone reading this) do a bunch of crack right now, then drink three bottles of wine, let a couple of years go by, then write about the experience. Right. I think you get my drift here.
If you read the free chapter that is offered here on Amazon, then you don't need to read anymore. Trust me on this one. Yawn.